Music

Mumbai rapper's powerful autobiographical song is India's first music video shot on the iPhone

"Jungli Sher" (literally wild lion), India's first professional music video shot with an iPhone 6s, releases today. The man behind it is the popular 25-year-old Mumbai rapper Divine, whose raw and powerful lyrics are beautifully complemented by the video's striking, flickering visuals of the city.

Divine, who has already carved a name for himself for his intense and true-to-life songs, looks all set to jump into the big league with "Jungli Sher". The video has been directed by Vandana Kataria, who has been acclaimed for her production design in films such as Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!

Like most rap lyrics, the song is autobiographical and draws upon elements from Divine's own life, including a difficult childhood spent growing up without his parents in Mumbai's slums. "Every line in the song is about me," Divine told Mashable. "This will be my resume that will be left on the Internet. I think everyone has an animal in them — but you can either be a lion or a rat. I understood the difference."

The use of Hindi and everyday slang in the lyrics, a shift Divine made a couple of years ago, make the song even more relatable. It also suggests rap's potential to narrate Indian stories, beyond the commercial party and Bollywood songs it is mostly known for in India.

Divine's appeal lies in his focus on staying true to his roots. "I want to stay true to myself, not just make music for fun," he says. "I've never lied in my rhymes because I lied enough to my mum when I was young."

Divine, whose real name is Vivian Fernandez, first started rapping in college, and wrote his first song in 2011. He was never formally trained in music, instead choosing to teach himself on a mike and audio software. He wrote everyday, recorded songs in a local audio studio and listened to them over and over again to understand what could be better.

"Jungli Sher" is the third in a series of self-reflective songs from Divine. If 2013's "Yeh Mera Bombay" celebrated Mumbai, 2015's "Meri Gully Main" was shot in his neighbourhood and spoke of the streets he spent his childhood in. With "Jungli Sher", his music takes a more inward turn, but it was written in the course of just a single day, one-and-a-half years ago.

These early videos were also shot in a DIY-style, with Divine's friend doing the camera work. There was a sea change in the visuals with "Jungli Sher". Kataria spent over two months conceptualising the video.

For Kataria, the most important aspect of the video was staying true to what Divine was trying to say. "When I heard the song, I was blown away," she says. "It spoke to me directly and I wanted people, even non-rap listeners, to understand what Divine was talking about." She chose locations ranging from local trains to narrow streets, which "underlie his rap and give it another dimension."

Once she finalised the concept, she began looking for the perfect device to translate its gritty and realistic nature and large scale. "We wanted it to look as real as his lyrics," Kataria says. "It allowed me to capture the character of the city and Divine." In keeping with the video's realistic tone, the characters in the video were also non-actors, and primarily real-life people from the streets.

The song was shot at 43 locations all over the city, over four days and nights, using an iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s. She also used two Moondog anamorphic lenses, which were also used in last year's critically-acclaimed American film Tangerine. They offered ample scope for wide-screen views, and a mix of background and foreground action and gave the video a textured look. The other gear comprised of two gimbals to balance the weight of the camera.

Kataria, who is used to working with large film crews and equipment, says the smaller film gear made shoots faster. It also let Kataria shoot on smaller locations, play with movement and work with the video's other actors with more ease. "A bigger camera would have intimidated the other actors, who were real-life people. It also worked on smaller locations and let the camera run with Divine." The video was edited over six days, using the Filmic Pro app, which was also also used in Tangerine.

So can the iPhone change cinema? "You still need a great concept, but yes, these new devices are changing the language and grammar of filmmaking," Kataria says. "As people use it, more reality is going to creep into cinema."

"Jungli Sher", produced by Sony Music, debuts on Apple Music today. The single is available on iTunes for Rs 15 in India and $1.99 in the US. You can watch the video here.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.